If they just want to diversify, more power to them. European (or at least French) astronauts were flying with the Russians (Soviets) back in the 1980s, long before the US did so.

Still, I can't help but wonder if this is ESA's way of assuring they have a plan B for the post-ISS age in case Russia's manned space program goes belly-up. After all, there have been plenty of indications that the Europeans no longer consider the USA/NASA a truly reliable partner (for good reason, seeing the total aimlessness and political bickering over here). China may look to be a more attractive and reliable partner and Germany in particular has huge economic interests there anyway.

Still, I can't help but wonder if this is ESA's way of assuring they have a plan B for the post-ISS age in case Russia's manned space program goes belly-up.

I really doubt it's that tactical at all, that's not how ESA works. It comes down to the philosophy behind the creation of ESA, using spaceflight as a means to promote peaceful co-operation. It's a brand of philosophy it shares with many pan-European organisations. ESA's experience with international partnerships internally naturally leads it to pursue this with external partners too, you will find apart from limited areas such as "European Guaranteed Access to Space", in many spheres ESA would prefer not to work independantly if it can find partners.

8 October 2012Wang Zhaoyao, Director General of the China Manned Space Agency, accompanied by the first Chinese female astronaut, Liu Yang, met ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain at the Agency’s headquarters in Paris on 8 October.

Mr Dordain congratulated Mr Wang on the successful Shenzhou-9 mission, stating how impressed he had been when learning of the flawless automatic and manual docking with Tiangong-1.

Following earlier discussions, the two sides have agreed to continue talking about possible avenues for cooperation between ESA and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

A delegation from CMSA and the Chinese Astronaut Centre will visit the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne in the near future with a view to sharing experiences in astronaut training.

Another potential area of cooperation could be joint scientific experiments carried out on the Tiangong space laboratory.

The European Space Agency is actively working with China with the goal of placing a European astronaut on the Chinese space station as part of a relationship that is likely to grow now that ESA governments have made China one of three long-term strategic partners for the agency, ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain said Jan. 16.

Lame. The EU is passed by the Chinese. The inane non-existant manned space progress plus the all solid Ariane 6 will drive a stake through all EU space efforts. In 10 years people will be discussing how the EU could have fallen from the premier commercial space launch provider to irrelevance.

Lame. The EU is passed by the Chinese. The inane non-existant manned space progress plus the all solid Ariane 6 will drive a stake through all EU space efforts. In 10 years people will be discussing how the EU could have fallen from the premier commercial space launch provider to irrelevance.

Thank you for you highly uninformed post.In case you had not noticed: independent MANNED access to space is NOT a priority for ESA. If it had been Hermes would be flying or else an ARV derivative. ESA has deliberately chosen to fly it's own astronauts on spacecraft provided by partners such as the USA or Russia. And now China. Very smart actually. Provides them with multiple opportunities to fly their astros without having to pay for a hugely expensive indepent capability.Also: ESA is not a commercial space launch provider. They handed that role over to Arianespace.And finally: the design of Ariane 6 has changed. It is no longer all-solid.

The Europeans have traditionally preferred multilateralism as a method to ensure strategic autonomy when Made in Europe was too expensive or undesirable. Euro-Chinese missions are just a variation of Euro-Japanese, Euro-Russian and Euro-American missions. Some member states have a more positive opinion of China than of the US, if cooperating with the Chinese makes the limited space euros go farther, so much the better